A Big Little Life

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About the Book

In a profound, funny, and beautifully rendered portrait of a beloved companion, bestselling novelist Dean Koontz remembers the golden retriever who changed his life. A retired service dog, Trixie was three when Dean and his wife, Gerda, welcomed her into their home. She was superbly trained, but her greatest gifts couldn’t be taught: her keen intelligence, her innate joy, and an uncanny knack for living in the moment. Whether chasing a tennis ball or protecting those she loved, Trixie gave all she had to everything she did, inspiring Dean and Gerda to trust their instincts and recapture a sense of wonder that will remain with them always. Trixie lived fewer than twelve years; in this wide world, she was a little thing. But in every way that mattered, she lived a big life.

Reviews

"An amusing love letter to [a] golden retriever."
—People

"Besides quite regularly manifesting her extraordinariness, Trixie made Koontz ponder the nature of intelligence, interspecies communication, sympathy, intuition, love and the loyalty it engenders, and other species' degrees of consciousness, including the knowledge of personal death. Koontz leavens his musings on such weighty themes with plenty of both self-deprecation humor and Trixie's comic élan to make this one dog book that everyone other than the most flint-hearted dog-haters will deeply enjoy."
— Ray Olson, Booklist, starred review

"A Big Little Life is more than just a funny and poignant memoir of a couple's joyful experience with an exceptional dog, though it's a delightful read on this level alone. It's also an exploration of how a serious and successful writer came to better understand the gift and meaning of life, and had his sense of wonder restored, with the help of a golden retriever named Trixie.... Koontz identifies for us many of the reasons dogs charm us: their innocence, their ability to live in the present, and their unfailing love for us, even when we don't deserve it.... An unusually effective brief for the joy that dogs bring us."
—American Spectator

"Koontz offers an inspirational book of love, hope and humor, and reveals a side of his private life that will surprise and please his readers."
—Bookreporter.com

"A wonderful story about an extraordinary dog."
—Charles de Lint, Fantasy and Science Fiction